This is a blog where I post my favourite photographs from around the places I've visited. I am an amateur photographer and I am ever learning as I go along!

Thursday, 7 July 2016

KNIPHOFIA

Kniphofia. also called tritoma, red hot poker, torch lily, knofflers or poker plant, is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asphodelaceae, first described as a genus in 1794. It is native to Africa. Herbaceous species and hybrids have narrow, grass-like leaves 10–100 cm long, while perennial species have broader, strap-shaped foliage up to 1.5 m long.

All plants produce spikes of upright, brightly coloUred flowers well above the foliage, in shades of red, orange and yellow, often bicoloured. The flowers produce copious nectar while blooming and are attractive to bees. In the New World they may attract sap-suckers such as hummingbirds and New World orioles. The Kniphofia genus is named after Johann Hieronymus Kniphof, an 18th-century German physician and botanist.

4 comments:

Very, very cool Nick. The alternate names are pretty funny. It's hard to forget "red hot poker" although I'm partial to "torch lily" (even though it doesn't look much like a lily). I'd think the hummingbirds would be all over this amazing flower.